Page 331 - Prisoner's Dilemma

Author Notes:

Guest Author's Note: "In some groups, most players have a hidden agenda. Sometimes even goals that right out oppose the rest of the group (like sabotaging the search for the Gold City in a steampunk setting, because it will destabilize the economy of the character's homeland). These days everybody in my group suspects everybody else, which does not prevent us from working together for most of the time. Tell the story of character working secretly against the party because he was replaced by doppelganger, bribed, or just likes messing with GM expectations."

64 Comments:

Indeed, that was some hilarious "Gambit Speed Chess" going on that ended in everyone loosing. XD

I remember a sitch in a D&D game where two players had secret agendas. One wanted a demon bound to him, the other a forbidden spell of power.
The above comic illustrates about as well as how our players ended...

I might have such a story too. Allow me to tell you all about Raxdrones.

Raxon grows human bodies from his own, and stays connected to them remotely. He forms the monarch in charge of many, well, I can't say they're mindless drones. They must be programmed. In order to let them blend in with normal humans, they all have different personalities and appearances, and have the ability to learn on their own. However, their life support is dependent on Raxon. They are physically a part of him, literally parts of his body. His home is set to automatically give each one a unique look and a default personality. They could look like anyone. Be a physical copy of anybody. And now you know the secret behind the growing vagrancy problem in Metropolis.

On another front, Raxon has invited not one but two spies into his home(more if you count the chinese), and outright told them that they are welcome to snoop through anything they like, but it's on their own heads if the residents catch them. The first is from some dark, shadowy government organization.

The second came after Raxon went to Mount Olympus, threatened Zeus, mortally wounded Ares, healed Ares, got very drunk on a single cup of Ares' ichor, presented Circe's soul to Athena, and then tricked her into giving him permission to lift the curse on Euryale and Stheno. A curse that Hera placed on them to begin with.

This did not go over well with the gods. They decided that they should watch this mortal who can face them on even terms. They sent Athena in the guise of a woman named Serena to join his house, to watch it, and decide for herself whether he can be reasoned with, or must be destroyed.

The government spy is just a woman who happens to be employed by the US government to steal all of Raxon's secrets. Photographing all the pages of his spellbooks, including his runes of power, is her job. So to recap, one spy wants to steal all his stuff, while the other one might decide to murder him. Fun stuff!

Fun fact: Some of these runes are traps. When you look at them, written on neither stone, not parchment, written without ink, they become active, the rune becomes active, and activates upon being seen by any sentient person, much like exploding runes. These particular runes are summoning runes. They are part of a sinister, widespread plot to fill government complexes with ponies. Yes, Ponies. Dunwich is a fan.

The plan goes like this:

Researcher: Okay, let's see the latest scans from our agent in the field. Huh, that's a funny image. Almost- ACK!

*pony licks his ear*

R: What the- Where did you come from!?

Other researcher runs in. He see the monitor, but is more focused on the pony.

OR: What's all the- Where did you get two ponies?

R: There are two ponies now?

Manager walks in. "This is no place for talk of- WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GET THREE PONIES!?"

Yes, that's right. The runes are schmuck bait. Insultingly effective schmuck bait. Isn't it fun when you can balance espionage intrigue and humor?

He opens a chain of 'cosmetic enhancement salons' because he doesn't want the AMA to sue him for using the term clinic. He offers furry options, like ears and tails, grown from your own body, in ten minutes or less. All manner of plastic surgery options done cheap and quick, and flawlessly.

And then he gives reporters a tour of the facilities, and sings 'Poor Unfortunate Souls' right there in the waiting room, right in front of the customers. Using the customers as props as he does. After the reporters leave, the waiting room bursts out with laughter.

He uses biomancy, and he has trained techs administer it, so basically, he created a drive through plastic surgery clinic with no surgery. Instant breast enhancement or reduction, liposuction, hair removal, hair growth, skin and hair color changes, etc.

Also, he has a sign saying that he reserves the right to refuse service for any reason. This includes boob jobs. Also, there's tattoo removal, and an option to change eye color, and even mod eyes to have slit pupils, or glow in the dark via bioluminescence.

He can make blue your natural skin and hair color. You can drop 100 lbs, get ears and a tail, glowing yellow eyes, and become your fursona... for under $500.

And they can make it temporary if you wanna go out and spend a wild weekend partying, but have to be back in the office Monday.

The first one opens in Raxon's adopted home town, Detroit! He's not the hero the city needs, but he's the idiot they deserve.

Subsequent shops open in San Francisco, NYC, LA, and every city where there is a major furry convention. I agree. Basically infinite money, which all goes to charity. Specifically, the charity "Better Lives For Moon People".

Yes, it's legal for him to create a charity for the purpose of paying admission to cons, paying for food, and paying for hotel rooms.

The US government tries to shut them down hard, on all kinds of claims, like saying that they haven't tested his technology to make sure safe. If you ever read Tales of the Questor, it's the same deal with his magic, except be doesn't fully understand it, though. But anyway, you probably wouldn't wanna work there. It is a dangerous job.

If you've ever heard of B.A.D.D. then you can guess the usual accusations. Satanic, brainwashing our kids, turning them into violent criminals, encouraging drug use, you name it. Oh, and they use PETA level tactics. Filing numerous lawsuits, picketing, shouting slander, and even splashing holy water in his face and calling him an actual demon. It is kind of unnerving, but at the same time, you can rest safe, knowing that if the group does hurt you, Raxon will respond swiftly, harshly, and will leave no evidence.

He thinks of them as fools, but the moment he considers them an actual threat, he's 'porting the lot of them to South Africa.

Yeah, they end up sort of looking like WBC with really good PR. Lex Luthor level PR.

And it's all because it's new and different, and all the kids are into it.

You know what's scary? I came up with the same kind of cosmetic enhancement salon idea for a fanfic that never got off the ground (I think it was a Ranma one). Probably due to the fact that I never managed to come up with a plot to fit the scenario.

This is set in the DC universe. Raxon's abilities may be much more diverse than most, but he's mostly special in that his powers are highly marketable. In terms of raw power, he's not even in the top ten. On Earth. Also, he was defeated by The Trickster. The salon is a public moneymaker thing he set up, but he has so many more irons in the fire. All of them. He has all the irons in the fire.

Raxon Dunwich is mostly my go to guy for zany stuff. You know what his car is? An A1 Abrams stretch limo tank. He had to replace the steel with carbon fiber in order to make it roomy enough and light enough to make it street legal. Yes, he had to disable the cannon, but he put a carbon fiber barrel on it with a couple motors so he can point it at tailgaters. Please note that he cannot drive, and requires a driver. In fact, his understanding of cars is as follows: the engine is the car's heart. When the heart beats faster, the car goes faster. The heart does not beat when the car is sleeping.

Personally I don't really like backstabbing other party members unless it is specifically a game where people can expect it. Nothing can ruin an in-game (and out of game) friendship like party betrayal. People can get really invested.

No one likes a party wipe at the final bad guy, especially if a "friend" was the only reason it happened

I have a sheet for a noble paladin with chronic backstabbing disorder. It manifests through stabbing people in the back with whatever is at hand... while he's asleep. He sleeps with a rubber knife for that purpose.

Boom. A paladin who literally backstabs his friends and allies, and keeps his paladinhood.

I've never been given a chance to play as him. Sad, right? I imagine that after hearing him explain his condition, and experiencing it first hand, the entire party will quickly learn to sleep on their back.

I had one tale: I was brought into the game and unlike the others, was handed a character sheet. The campaign was level 2, I was level 4, if awful class choices (rogue/bard). I was told that I was the head of the thieves guild, and my job was to double-cross the party as they attacked the (rather expansive) guild.

...I wanted to do so at an ideal time, so I waited, I really badly mis-aimed spells, and generally acted like an incompetent level 2 bard. They reached the end of the guild's vaults, the 2nd in command ready to do a final assault...
...
And the good lieutenant says that I was the guild leader and planning on backstabbing them. The backstabber was backstabbed. Lieutenant was still going to kil the party, of course. I fled to a far side of the room, and won out a bardic-boosted diplomacy to get some of the leftover remnants of the guild to side with me over him, and we had a big three-way brawl.

(I focused on the lieutenant, so I did wind up losing, but I think it was handled well all-around. Even I was surprised by the second backstab.)

One time, when I was at a convention, I played as a rogue who had the secret agenda of killing the nobleman in the party. I succeeded at the end("Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!" Became a meme for everyone in the session) but that's not what I'm here to talk about. One player needed to QUIT THE GAME to WIN THE GAME. He did so by getting everyone else onto some teleporter thingy and lighting the four things that needed to be on fire, by hand. There was a mage that offered to do it magically, but he said he would send himself afterwards. He then leaves the dungeon. My rogue then tried to get the noble to open the trapped door. I claimed to be in the back of the group, and that since he was the closest he needed to open it. The bard(I think) opened the door, and the trap triggered on him. It wasn't deadly.

Don't think I can be much help here. There was a time when one or two of us tried to do that, but it never worked smoothly, so as a general rule, if one of our characters is plotting or scheming in the backs of the others, all the players are usually aware of that. it then falls to them to not abuse that knowledge in-character. So far, so good, but we'll see how long it lasts...

I had a Naga/Yuan-ti (whatever you want to call them) character for a short while. She was hiding her race for a number of reasons, the most important of them being she was wanted by several members of a local guild who had been using her as a slave.

Well, she accidentally had her true race revealed during a fight. The entire rest of the party immediately decided that she was a traitor sent to kill them, and attacked her. Pretty much nothing I or she said convinced them. >.>

The GM really didn't do anything to them, he was too stunned that they actually thought he'd cooked it up. I was royally pissed off though.... And then shortly after that the group stopped playing and I haven't gotten to play any kind of roleplaying in over a year.

I wasn't too keen on our group's proposed Age of Sail campaign until I realized that my character had a deep secret - not a bad one, but one he doesn't tell the other PCs. He's a fine sailor, from a tiny fishing village in the American colony of Massachusetts, and he's never gotten around to mentioning that the name of the place is Innsmouth.

I expected someone to get suspicious a lot earlier about why he kept scratching messages onto copper cladding plates and dropping them over the side into the sea...

Well, my most recent game ended on a glorious party-betrayal. It was my first turn at the wheel of our long-standing superhero setting. The villain was my own character gone rogue from the government of California (its own country in the setting), and having sabotaged everything he could on his way out that would aid in chasing him. All the PCs have their own reason to be chasing him, one of which was his father figure, Randal Clyde, making his first outing as a player character instead of an NPC. They finally track him down to a warehouse in Berlin. Clyde, a highly-skilled black-ops agent suggests going in first, with those that can phase occupying the same space as him so anything with supernatural senses would only pick up one body.

What he DIDN'T tell them was that every single point of XP he'd gotten since the start of the game had been spent on weapons that aren't particularly useful except against one specific party member. Him, the psychic with no real body occupying his head (Frank), and the one that can walk through walls (Fade) enter at the same time, and Clyde's player starts rolling dice. He asks Fade's player what her Fortitude is. She looks at him funny, then answers. He responds with "cool, you're unconcious for a few rounds now." At which point it's officially a combat, which gives him a surprise round in which to blast Frank with a magic gun. He ended up temporarily incapacitating every other party member except the ridiculously-tough werewolf player. After that first round of combat, he turns to his surrogate son who saw the whole thing, and offers to aid in his escape by fleeing to an entire other dimension. After all this work, and one colossal backstab, said character goes "Uh, no. I've had enough time to think about what I've done to realize that I kind of deserve this.* Thanks though."

*This was actually the plan, backstab or no backstab. The guy was really, super insane and has a bit of a history of having brief moments of lucidity in past appearances.

I had a game where my party blew up and destroyed itself on the third session. The weirdest part is, this was a solo campaign; one player was controlling all four of the characters!

It started with a vampire attacking the town and the party rushing to the aid of the civilians. The vampire was a monk, and he was actually supposed to kill the wizard before running like hell, by using a Flurry of Blows to level-drain and damage the wizard simultaneously. (This was a light-hearted campaign, and it was revenge on a one-shot my player ran where my wizard with took three crossbow bolts to the face and died in literally the first round of combat.)

I rolled horribly and missed, but this was when the group's fighter decided that this was 3.5, dammit, and he didn't want to be underpowered! So he and the party's other non-caster sided with the vampire. I was WTFing all over the place, but ran the combat to it's conclusion. The good guys lost, and the two weapon-based members of the party became vampires.

Second weirdest session I've ever done, the weirdest being the time I managed to break a sequel months in the making, killing every antagonist and a couple of people who might not have been antagonists at all just to be safe in a single session. But I'm saving that story for a "break the game" comic.

Shadowrun, version 3 rules. I am playing with two other players. Our job was to hunt down and kill a nest of vampires.

Our party is made up of Andrew the snake shaman (Started off as a Lawful Good but is slowly being corrupted to Lawful chaos by circumstances. I really should mention how some of his plans have ended up sooner or later), Az the neutral Irish mage and Ethan.

In order to get in good enough with the nest of vampires we were trying to find, Ethan decides to undergo their initiation trial and murder an innocent soccer mum in her home rather brutally. Andrew was not with the party at the time since he was checking out another lead, but he had allowed Az and Ethan to borrow his car in order to let them head out to where they believed was the area the vampires were nesting in order to locate their lair (It would not have been that hard. There were two farmhouses in that area. The GM pointed this out, but Ethan ignored it.)

Az didn't try to stop him because Ethan offered him enough alcohol to buy his loyalty. When they came back to the hotel room, said car was stained with innocent blood, which pissed Andrew off a lot.

Later on, when the Vampires called Ethan up and told him where to meet them, he stole Andrew's car and went off on his own. As it turns out, Ethan was a Vampire from the beginning and was planning on turning the Vampire nest we were meant to be wiping out into an ally of his.

Shortly after arriving at the barn the vampires were using, a different vampire hunting team arrived and laid waste to the place. Bursting through a wooden wall and running for it, Ethan called Andrew and Az (Who were taking a cab out to where they suspected Ethan had taken Andrew's car) in order to ask them to come and save him.

Andrew's response was as follows. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of INNOCENT BLOOD YOU SPILLED IN MY CAR, WHICH YOU STOLE YOU THIEVING MOTHERFUCKER!"

While they have worked together since that job (Surprisingly well too) it's clear that both Andrew and Ethan would be happy to kill the other if the opportunity presented itself.

Maybe I will milk my moment of glory for what is worth and tell some full story too:
Many years ago, my friend started his first campaign as a DM. He was experience player - just too lazy to DM. It was D&D in Forgotten realms. In a group was LG Paladin, CG cleric of Torm, CG sorcerer, and my character NG mage - who was actually a NE psion - the fact I was not a wizard was uncovered on the second session, but the team thought that was my only secret (one secret per player was our usual quota). When at the beginning we witnessed Rise of ancient Lich who absorbs magic of others I decided I would help him by delivering his phylactery with his soul, that we were looking for. After that we had around 5-6 sessions during which I was dodging Detect Evil that Paladin was randomly spamming I still managed to be safe.
But then we infiltrated ruined castle of Paladins Order and triggered a trap that harmed only evil characters. I had to think fast so I said that trap is based on mind attack and harms only those who are dangerous - that is, have high int score. Since every other member had INT below 10 and I had 19 I was the only one harmed. They looked at me for a few moments and then Cleric triggered trap another time just to check empirically my theory. And because it was "funny". I was sure they know. But when we finally managed to secure phylactery and I've offered that I will use my psionic energy to destroy it, there were ok with this. Then I told them, I had to be alone, because there is chance there will be big explosion. I may not survive, but I want nothing to happen to them, you know. Because I care for you and stuff.
They were ok with this... As long as I leave my magic items and gold first (shame if they go for waste, yeah?). So they let me leave them. With phylactery. And they were thinking that they tricked me, because they assumed I will die and they got free magic items and gold. They promised to mourn and praise my heroism, laughing all the way. Then DM and I broke into laughter and ended the campaign with Lich making me his lieutenant and conquering big part of the land. His undead armies marched through homes of a our heroes. Their families screamed with terror…
... and at this moment DM description was stopped by Paladin player who always was pretty slow - "But he (me) told us he is good. How was I supposed to know that he is evil?"

This is perfect, actually. Our side-adventure with the dwarves and the drow that I mentioned on the last comic also featured some heavy suspicion from and towards all members of the party.

Early on we encountered the aftermath of a heavy battle between the dwarves we were working for, some duergar, and a minotaur. One of the dwarves, Bomlin, was still alive, but injured, so of course we healed him up and brought him with us. While we were sleeping (don't know why we forgot to put someone on watch), he stole my coin purse and ran. Later we met some other dwarves who had been lost in the tunnels and told them about how we had found Bomlin, healed him up, and he ran away.

The response? "No, that's impossible. Bomlin was killed by a doppelgänger!"

Cue collective groan.

The regular DM's character, a warmage, was under suspicion because he was new to the party and had just finished seducing the rogue. The rogue was under suspicion, not because of her class, but because soon afterwards she killed two dwarves who showed up and accused one of us of being the doppelgänger. The party cleric was being pretty quiet, and the ranger and I were both under serious evaluation because we had fallen into a pit earlier and had had a "secret" adventure, just the two of us. The only person in the clear was our barbarian, because he was a former PC whose player had left the game. The warmage didn't trust me either (in-character) because I was a gnoll and had joined the dungeon crawl late (I missed the first part, so the guest DM and I decided that I found the gnome who teleported the rest of us and coerced him into doing the same for me).

As soon as the ranger and I returned, I asked if I could roll Sense Motive to find out what was happening. Since I got a 35 or something ridiculous, the guest DM said that I essentially knew exactly what had went down in the last two minutes. So I cast Zone of Truth. The only two who passed the Will save? The cleric and the rogue, who were both shrieking and pointing fingers constantly. The ranger intentionally threw the Will save, and the warmage failed; both declared that they were not the doppelgänger, but that still left the two most suspicious members of the party off the hook.

Luckily, after getting stomped upon by a few more traps, we found a scroll of Detect Evil and had the barbarian read it (we told him what to say, since he was illiterate). The guest DM walked around the table and examined everyone's character sheets, reading off their alignments one-by-one, until he stared dramatically at the cleric and said, "And Lawful Evil!"

Now, the regular DM and I had worked out my character concept before I joined the game a few sessions before - he was a favored soul, of course, and "Godsworn", chosen as a champion of Erythnul to do evil in the world (though the character didn't know it). Since he came from the only tribe of friendly gnolls in the world, this was a bit of a problem. So when I said, "Actually, he [the barbarian] also detects an alignment of Chaotic Evil," the guest DM stared at me like I was crazy.

I didn't kill anyone friendly (and still haven't), though I did gain an awful twitch. And all of my glowing divine spells became tinged with black and red. You know, nothing out of the ordinary. It did help to intimidate some half-drow later on.

I and my group played mostly evil characters. We were much more effective as champions. We would constantly try and out-prank/kill each other.

I once tricked our anti-paladin who was wanted for murder into hiding in a potato sack in with full plate armor on in the back of a wagon and then cast Temp bag of holding on it. He fell through to the astral plane. Six levels higher than me, still dumb as a rock.

Fortunately his loot was on his horse which was not wanted by the law. ;)

Darn... I didnt betray my party often, only once and I have told that story already. I play more neutral character then evil ones...

OH! Just remembered one!

We played one-session game, a evil party and had a mission to prevent the good aligned Planes to invade the Material Plane and conquer it. I was playing a neutral evil druid (not optimized. We had a free template so I played a green half-dragon druid (with that humanoid fey in Race of the wild as base creature)... The GM allowed it, even if Green Dragon cant be druid, I Know)

The rest of the group had a half-fiend Rogue and anti-paladin (dont remember the race)

I prevent the Paladin order (the good guys) to open the portal (and revenge my Dragon father death in the same way) but while we were distracted, the half-fiend rogue decide to go open the portal !!!

We couldnt stop him and the game ended with angels and the likes coming out of the portal and offering us to repent for our sins and offer redemption... or instant destruction.

I said us, druids, are on the side of nature only and are always neutral because of it. I managed to get away with that, even if my alignement was evil (and because the GM told me my explination and roleplay was awesome LOL)

Imagine being confronted by a swarm of rats. Talking rats. With glowing green eyes. That can fly.

Much hilarity ensued, including being able to have 'table chatter' with myself. It didn't come out until much later that they were a *demonic* swarm of rats... They weren't like, *nasty*, though they did have ulterior motives..

In our Shadow Walkers PT game, the party is a team of Lunar spies engaged in a "secret" war against our Solar counterparts (and others). As you've probably already guessed, Pixie, our unicorn, turned out to be a Solar Double Agent. We were already pretty wary of each other as spies, but none of us actually thought it would really happen.

Instead of make us all more suspicious of each other, we are all pretty sure no one is a traitor anymore (though we all outright accuse each other of working for another faction. All the time).

Slightly unrelated, another character ended up betraying the group, not because of allegiances, but because he really hated my character, and tried to kill him. Killed him in self defense, though, so it works out.